Learning to Be Still

My family and some of my kids’ friends, spent part of last weekend at my parents’ house. On Saturday afternoon, we did one of my very favorite activities. We sat on the porch, enjoyed the spring time weather and rocked. I flipped through magazines and had a cup of tea and chatted with my mama and my hubby. The kids played on the golf cart.

One of my daughter’s friends once asked her how long we usually stay when visit my parents. My daughter replied that sometimes a couple of weeks and one time, for a month. She was kind of surprised because she couldn’t imagine what there was to “do,” for all of that time, but therein lies the beauty of our time there.

We really don’t have to, “do,” anything. We love being there because we love each other. We love spending time there because we don’t have to prepare for work or school the next day. We don’t have to get dressed up. During the summer, we spend most of our time at the pool, so we don’t care about makeup or what we are wearing.

We often eat sandwiches on paper plates because we prefer to spend time with each other rather than in the kitchen slaving over the stove.

Our time spent with the grandparents has taught my children and their mama, that we don’t have to always, “do,” that it’s perfectly fine to just, “be.”

That’s a concept that’s often lost in our busy world. We are always on the move striving and working for more. Happiness is always just around the next bend or over the next hill.

We forget that God calls us to be still.

“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

But, being still comes hard for us these days. We are over scheduled and overworked. We are exhausted and our kids are just as tired as we are, yet they sleep less, and go and strive more.

Perhaps, one of the greatest gifts we can give them and ourselves, is teaching them the peace that comes from sitting on a porch in a rocking chair with nothing to “do,” but enjoy the day and “be,” with the ones we love.

When we learn to be still, we can feel the God nudges that we often miss in our whirlwind of activity.